In 1993, Oscar Peterson had a stroke that significantly impaired
his left arm and hand. For a pianist, this was a potential death
sentence. There was significant question about whether Peterson would
ever be able to play the piano again. It took two years for him to
return to the keyboard, and he never regained his previous
(unparalleled) virtuosity—though it is worth noting that his friend, and
amateur pianist Bob Rae, famously maintained that “a one-handed Oscar
was better than just about anyone with two hands.”
Peterson was born on August 15 1925 in Montreal. As a child, the man Duke Ellington would call the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” was classically trained. His father was an accomplished amateur, and when Oscar had outpaced his father’s lessons his musical education was handed over to Paul de Marky (a Hungarian pianist in the direct line of musical descent from Franz Liszt). By the time he was nine years old Oscar was confounding professional musicians with his range, precision, and panache. When he was about 13 years old, Oscar’s father brought home a copy of Art Tatum’s “Tiger Rag,” which proved a lesson in musical humility. “Tatum scared me to death,” Peterson would later say.
With all due respect to Art Tatum, who was, perhaps, the second greatest pianist of the 20th century, by the time Peterson began performing with the Herb Ellis and Ray Brown he was Tatum’s equal. That trio (with Peterson on the piano, Ray Brown on the double-bass, and Herb Ellis on the guitar) recorded a live album at the 1956 Stratford Shakespearean Festival which remains the high-water mark in Jazz trio artistry.
In a strange way, there is connection between the central dramatic performance of the 1956 Stratford Festival and this recording. 1956 was Michael Langham’s first year as the artistic director of the festival, and he staged a now legendary performance of Henry V, a play whose central character is meant to embody the totalized ideal of chivalry. One of the principal factors that distinguishes Henry V from the other English kings whose reign Shakespeare had occasion to dramatize was his mastery of the courtly quality sprezzatura—described by Baldassare Castiglione in the 1528 Book of the Courtier as the ability to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them.” It is a quality Henry V and Oscar Peterson share.
The album opens with “Falling in Love with Love,” a show-tune from Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers musical The Boys from Syracuse. Right away you can hear Peterson’s mastery of his medium. The left hand confidently working a technique called “the stride” or “the Harlem stride,” where the left hand hits a key note and then on every first and third beat hits its seventh or tenth interval, and on every second and fourth beat lands on the tonic chord. The right hand flies up and down, free to explore the full range of the instrument because it is grounded firmly in a tonic structure of the left hand. No one’s right hand could fly like Peterson’s. The speed and precision would boggle the mind even if long sections of the music were not being improvised. When the music requires Peterson explore the keyboard with both hands (transitioning into a Liszt-ian ten finger technique that recalls his Hungarian childhood teacher) the rhythm work passes to Brown’s bass without a hitch. This is sprezzatura of the first order. The music is Herculean in its demands on the dexterity, creativity, stamina, and precision of the player. But Peterson’s mastery of his instrument is at such a high level that there is an air of casual grace in his play. One can imagine him leaning back on the bench, cigarette on his lips, with a smile that seemed to say “oh, this old song?”
On the album’s seventh track, Peterson’s voice can be heard introducing Herb Ellis, who plays the lead role on a covering of Django Reinhardt’s “Le Nuages” (the clouds). Reinhardt, the French-Romani guitarist, is considered by many to be the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Ellis acquits himself admirably, and Peterson’s piano recedes into the background. This is artistic generosity, the willingness to play second fiddle when the music calls for it. When the music of “Le Nuages” ends, the crowd goes wild. What else is there to do?
Rating: 4/4
This content appeared originally at Pop, Shop, and Troll
Peterson was born on August 15 1925 in Montreal. As a child, the man Duke Ellington would call the “Maharaja of the Keyboard” was classically trained. His father was an accomplished amateur, and when Oscar had outpaced his father’s lessons his musical education was handed over to Paul de Marky (a Hungarian pianist in the direct line of musical descent from Franz Liszt). By the time he was nine years old Oscar was confounding professional musicians with his range, precision, and panache. When he was about 13 years old, Oscar’s father brought home a copy of Art Tatum’s “Tiger Rag,” which proved a lesson in musical humility. “Tatum scared me to death,” Peterson would later say.
With all due respect to Art Tatum, who was, perhaps, the second greatest pianist of the 20th century, by the time Peterson began performing with the Herb Ellis and Ray Brown he was Tatum’s equal. That trio (with Peterson on the piano, Ray Brown on the double-bass, and Herb Ellis on the guitar) recorded a live album at the 1956 Stratford Shakespearean Festival which remains the high-water mark in Jazz trio artistry.
In a strange way, there is connection between the central dramatic performance of the 1956 Stratford Festival and this recording. 1956 was Michael Langham’s first year as the artistic director of the festival, and he staged a now legendary performance of Henry V, a play whose central character is meant to embody the totalized ideal of chivalry. One of the principal factors that distinguishes Henry V from the other English kings whose reign Shakespeare had occasion to dramatize was his mastery of the courtly quality sprezzatura—described by Baldassare Castiglione in the 1528 Book of the Courtier as the ability to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them.” It is a quality Henry V and Oscar Peterson share.
The album opens with “Falling in Love with Love,” a show-tune from Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers musical The Boys from Syracuse. Right away you can hear Peterson’s mastery of his medium. The left hand confidently working a technique called “the stride” or “the Harlem stride,” where the left hand hits a key note and then on every first and third beat hits its seventh or tenth interval, and on every second and fourth beat lands on the tonic chord. The right hand flies up and down, free to explore the full range of the instrument because it is grounded firmly in a tonic structure of the left hand. No one’s right hand could fly like Peterson’s. The speed and precision would boggle the mind even if long sections of the music were not being improvised. When the music requires Peterson explore the keyboard with both hands (transitioning into a Liszt-ian ten finger technique that recalls his Hungarian childhood teacher) the rhythm work passes to Brown’s bass without a hitch. This is sprezzatura of the first order. The music is Herculean in its demands on the dexterity, creativity, stamina, and precision of the player. But Peterson’s mastery of his instrument is at such a high level that there is an air of casual grace in his play. One can imagine him leaning back on the bench, cigarette on his lips, with a smile that seemed to say “oh, this old song?”
On the album’s seventh track, Peterson’s voice can be heard introducing Herb Ellis, who plays the lead role on a covering of Django Reinhardt’s “Le Nuages” (the clouds). Reinhardt, the French-Romani guitarist, is considered by many to be the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Ellis acquits himself admirably, and Peterson’s piano recedes into the background. This is artistic generosity, the willingness to play second fiddle when the music calls for it. When the music of “Le Nuages” ends, the crowd goes wild. What else is there to do?
Rating: 4/4
This content appeared originally at Pop, Shop, and Troll
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